


against all odds (we still found each other)

by yxrtyu



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Angst and Romance, Day 6: right person wrong time, Haikyuu Angst Week 2020, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:29:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27435088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yxrtyu/pseuds/yxrtyu
Summary: Kageyama loves and loves and loves Tsukishima. Tsukishima knows and knows and now utterly and painfully, so painfully knows.A love story that was never supposed to be written.
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 16
Kudos: 68





	against all odds (we still found each other)

**Author's Note:**

> Entry for Haikyuu! Angst Week 2020's Day 6: right person, wrong time/"I don't regret anything."
> 
> Inspired by Umbrella Academy. So if you're watching that and haven't finished season 1, maybe don't read this.
> 
> Not sure about this title. Who knows. I might change it.
> 
> //edit
> 
> Updated tags so that everyone can understand what’s happening in the story.
> 
> Also changed the title.

_ January, 2023 _

Tsukishima leans back in his chair as he processes the news, eyes never leaving Kageyama. His Kageyama. His Tobio. The man he has been in love with for over a year. His Tobio that looks at him like he’s his whole world that was never meant to be. 

“When are you leaving?” he somehow manages to ask, voice slightly cracking. 

“Tomorrow morning.” Kageyama quietly says as he casts his eyes downwards. 

Tsukishima closes his eyes, wishing that this was only a bad dream and that once he opens them, he and Kageyama will be back to normal and will be enjoying their breakfast. He opens them and is instead met with Kageyama looking so small and upset. "Will you be coming back?"

Kageyama's lips tremble, his hands clenching each other to the point of pale knuckles. After what feels like forever, he slowly shakes his head. Tsukishima feels like he has been blindsided, hit with a sledgehammer to his face. This sudden announcement has him pulled all sorts of ways, but one thing is for sure and that is he feels completely helpless in this situation. 

How do you fall in love with someone only to find out that you were never meant to love them at all?

With a shaky breath, Kageyama looks up and tries to smile. “I love you. You know that, right?”

Tsukishima knows. He knows Kageyama loves him in the way he lights up when he sees him across a room, in the way he squeezes his hand three times for three syllables, in the way he reaches for him in sleep, in the way he gasps in his ear in the dark, and in the way he doesn’t scream in his face when they have heavy hearts and anger flowing in their blood. Kageyama loves Tsukishima through storms and the dead of winter with sunbeams and soothing warmth, his love a shining beacon for Tsukishima to find when he’s lost in the darkest parts of his own head, and he wonders how he’ll survive when that burning light is extinguished.

Kageyama loves and loves and _loves_ Tsukishima. Tsukishima knows and knows and now utterly and painfully, so painfully _knows_. 

“I know,” Tsukishima chokes out.

Kageyama sniffles and reaches for his hand, and Tsukishima lets him take it and grips him back just as tightly. He allows himself to be selfish, to cling to him for as long as he can, as long as Kageyama is in front of him, flesh and blood and alive and  _ real _ .

“Come with me.”

Tsukishima’s breath catches. “Tobio…”

All of a sudden, Kageyama comes around the table and kneels at his feet. “Come with me,” Kageyama says, voice stronger. “It’s…” he trails off, mouth drawn to a tight line as Tsukishima watches him try to form words. “I know it’ll be different. But you’ll have me. And I can help you.” He lets out a small breath and softly smiles. “Just like you helped me.”

It's tempting. Tsukishima finds the word "yes" at the tip of his tongue, raring to tumble out and seal the deal. If it meant that they could be with each other, to love each other to no end, he would do it. But Tsukishima is a practical man, ruled by his brain and its incessant worries and musings rather than by his heart. 

He looks around their apartment that they’ve built together and called home for the past year. His eyes land on a picture of two of them underneath the blooming cherry blossoms, back when he was clueless about Tobio and who he really was. It was so much simpler then, loving Kageyama. Then his eyes move to the picture next to it of his own family. 

“Kei?”

He would be leaving his parents and his brother to a time when they would be no longer. 

“Kei, please.”

He looks at Kageyama and wonders about his family and how he spent a whole year missing them. And how he is now able to finally go back to them. 

“Hey…”

Then there’s also the major project going on at the museum where he’s one of the top contributors, where he’s finally able to use his skills and make something of himself, but that’s only one project out of a lot more that he would like to be a part of. There are so many more things that he wants to do in this life, so much more to accomplish. He wants to leave his name in history, make a big impact somehow. 

And he wants to do it here and now with the friends and support he has.

“I… I can’t,” he finally says back. 

Tsukishima’s heart cracks when Kageyama’s face falls. When he feels his grip loosen, he leans forward and pulls him closer to cradle his face, makes him look at him and only him. 

“ _ Please _ , come with me. I can’t—”

“Tobio, listen to me.”

“I can’t imagine my life without you!” Kageyama cries out hoarsely, a tear escaping from the corner of his eyes. 

“And I can’t imagine my life without you, but, Tobio, listen to me.” It’s hard to speak with his throat so dry, but he shoulders on for both of them. He has to. “This is where I belong.”

“You belong with me!” Kageyama pleads with him, each sob he makes further breaking his heart.

“But you don’t belong  _ here _ .”

And that gets Kageyama to freeze, eyes widening as the realization creeps in.

“This isn’t  _ your  _ time. And where you’re from isn’t  _ my _ time. I’m not supposed to be there just like you’re not supposed to be here. You know this.” 

Kageyama bites his lip as his shoulders shake, hands reaching up to Tsukishima’s face. Tsukishima lets his eyes fall close, enjoying the way Kageyama’s feather touches trace over his features, deliberate strokes that Tsukishima wishes could brand him permanently as a reminder that Kageyama existed.

“ _ You know this _ ,” Tsukishima repeats in a whisper in hopes that Kageyama starts to accept the harsh truth.

“I know.” He feels Kageyama’s forehead lean against his, his fingertips stopping their journey on his lips. “I know.”

Tsukishima presses a kiss to his fingertips and opens his eyes to meet Kageyama’s deep ocean blue ones. Leaning back, he tries to do the same with shaky hands as this is his last opportunity to commit to memory each detail of Kageyama’s face. He tries to make the journey last long, slowly and deliberately tracing the Japanese characters for “I love you” onto his forehead, upon his tear-stained cheeks, down the slope of his nose, on the cuts of his jawline, and finally at his chin, thumb resting at the corner of his mouth when he’s finished. 

“Maybe in another time. Another life.”

“I would choose you even then,” Kageyama says without hesitation.

Tsukishima lets out a watery chuckle as his own tears begin to fall. “Now you’re just saying that.”

“I mean it.” He turns his head to kiss his palm. “And if I had a chance to go back to that day and choose whether or not to jump through, I would still jump. I would still choose this. I would still choose to spend this whole year with you.” His hands squeeze his wrists, fingers pressed on his pulse that beats only for him. “I mean it. And I meant all of it.”

A soft sob makes its way out Tsukishima’s chest. “I know.” 

Kageyama smiles softly at him, looks at him with tears streaming down his face and with so much love. "I don't regret anything."

"I know," Tsukishima repeats, quietly hiccups as Kageyama reaches over to swipe away the tears that shed with his thumb. "And I don't either."

Staring at Kageyama, trying to capture this image of him in his brain to keep tucked away in a corner of his heart, already has him missing the man, already has him feeling the gnawing emptiness that he will feel when Kageyama is no longer by his side. Just thinking about not having him close by anymore, not being able to feel him in his arms, has him gasping for air, hot tears falling down his face. It's almost enough to second guess himself and consider leaving, but he remembers his own goals and dreams, so he stands his ground and attempts to build himself up all the while his heart breaks.

"I love you so much, Tobio."

"I know."

Tsukishima wraps a hand around Kageyama’s neck and brings him closer to slam his lips against his, desperately trying to imprint his love upon him as he breathes him in. It’s so easy to savor the way their lips fit just so perfectly against each other that it almost makes him believe that this is how it is supposed to be, that they were fated to be together, but Kageyama’s tears falling onto his own cheeks to mix with his own remind him otherwise. Even so, he wants to leave a piece of himself with Kageyama to take with him wherever and whenever he goes, hopes that Kageyama will think of him and of their impossible love that bloomed between cracks of concrete.

  
  
  


And he hopes to keep a piece of Kageyama with him from now on and forever.

* * *

_January, 21XX_

Kageyama looks around the Sendai museum, unsure of what he should be looking at. He has never been in here when he was younger, only when  _ he _ worked here. It almost looks the same as it did back then except now it’s been updated with holographic infographics and banners and AI tour guides. It’s quiet inside for the most part, except for a couple of school trips where kids chatter excitedly to each other. Looking around he sees signs to different exhibits and reads each one carefully. 

“Oi, Kageyama, why are we even here?” Hinata asks, sounding a little bit bored. “Can’t we enjoy the present? We just got back from being gone for over a year, and now you want to be surrounded by ancient armor. Ugh.”

Kageyama ignores him and starts walking, not knowing where his feet will take him. He hears the scurrying of Hinata after him who continues to gripe about how things seem really dated and even much more so when they were trapped during that year. He passes by countless artworks and artifacts, not caring for any of them for he's seen them so many times. He’s not really sure what he’s looking for nor where he’s walking to, and he barely pays attention to his surroundings. When he arrives in a completely dark room save for the infographics, he stops, eyes searching the darkness for something he doesn't even think will even be there.

“What the heck, Kageyama? Are you going to tell me what’s up with you?” Hinata gets in front of his face with an annoyed look. “We’ve been walking around and... That’s it. We could’ve walked around in, I don’t know, anywhere else but here.”

“Can you shut up? I’m trying to think,” Kageyama hisses at him. 

“Wow, you can think?”

“I’m literally going to—”

“Do you two need help?”

“Yes, Kageyama does.”

“Shut up, asshole. And no, we—”

Kageyama stiffens, eyes widening in shock and heart leaping into his throat. In front of him is a glowing holo of Tsukishima Kei, dressed smartly like he always does. Did, his mind supplies unhelpfully. 

“Sir?” the AI asks with a raised brow, a quirk that was very much Tsukishima Kei. 

This is only an AI. This is not Tsukishima Kei. Kageyama knows this, yet some masochistic part of Kageyama makes him reach out, has him wanting to feel that warmth in his hand that he held not too long ago, but his hand goes through, the image of Tsukishima's face glitching when it does. He's not surprised, but he still feels so... disappointed.

“Sorry. We’re only holograms now. The museum used to have physical AIs, but they were too expensive to maintain.” It clears its throat as it pushes up its glasses and gives him a scathing look. “Also so people, like you, don’t get to touch.”

It’s a statement so snarky, so Tsukishima, that Kageyama can’t help but laugh, hand covering his face. The absurdity of the situation, of Kageyama trying to find traces of something that shouldn’t have existed only to run into an exact image in likeness and personality that has no idea who Kageyama was to its actual model, is so hilarious that he has to bend over and catch himself, arm wrapping around his stomach from how hard he is laughing. 

“Uh, Kageyama?” Hinata asks. He turns to the AI. “I’m sorry, uh. Excuse us.”

Hinata moves to usher Kageyama out of the exhibit, but Kageyama, whose laughter is slowly subsiding, shoves him off and stands to look at not-Tsukishima, who looks at him like a complete stranger. It almost makes him wish he never came here because at least then the last memory of Tsukishima will be of him alive and breathing and real, who loved him back in so many ways, not of an imitation that would never look at him like his Tsukishima did. 

“Sir? Are you okay?” the AI asks, Tsukishima’s face expressing a look of concern. Its eyes move to the man next to him. “I think there’s something wrong with your friend.”

Hinata rolls his eyes. “Isn’t there ever?” He sighs and turns to Kageyama. “Look, Bakayama.” He freezes, irritation quickly replaced with worry. “Whoa. Are you okay? You’re, like, crying.”

Kageyama blinks and touches face, surprised at the wetness on his cheeks. “Ah, I’m sorry. Excuse me.” He attempts to smile through his tears. 

  
  


“It's just that you remind me of somebody that I used to know.”

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: @__ieatcereal


End file.
